This Week in Sun Sports: 21 and Over Edition

Welcome back to This Week in Sun Sports, kids. As always, we'll be looking at the oddities of the Rays broadcasts from this past week. Anything from the announcing, to a crazy video segment, to the fans in the stands. If it's on Sun Sports, we see it. Because-- like Andy Sonnanstine from the bullpen--we're always watching.

This week covers Tuesday, June 19th - Sunday, June 24th. If you missed last week's, you can find it here.

In deference to the GFFP, we're going to start in the middle of the week.

Thursday, June 21st

From a baseball standpoint, things looked pretty grim at this point in the week. With the bases loaded in the top of the seventh inning, Will Rhymes came to the plate against Ryan Mattheus.

BA was having a tough time getting over the numbers:

BA: Lotta twos and ones. Twenty-one games, two-and-one record, two-one-one ERA, twenty-one-and-a-third innings--that's creepy. How ‘bout just a base hit here and drive that ERA up. Actually, it won't drive his ERA up, somebody else's. However, average against probably two-eleven.

And a few pitches later:

BA: And now imagine that, the count's two-and-one.

Dewayne Staats decided to get into the action:

DS: Rhymes hitting .292 against right-handed pitchers. That's 21 hits this year... What the Rays need to do is get Lobaton, who is number 21, to the plate. He's on deck.

It was a nice little bit of banter to help distract us from the fact that Rhymes K'd on a 3-2 "get me over" curveball to end the inning, but I can't help but think they missed a few things:

1. How does no one mention that the date of this game was June 21st? That should be priority number one.

2. No mention of the sign behind the dish promoting the Wallflowers coming to town on July 21st. I mean, it's literally staring you in the face, how could they miss this? If me and Cinderella put it all together, couldn't Dewayne and BA drive the point home (with one headlight)?

3. And, speaking of headlights: There are 21 Lexus logos visible on the seats behind home plate. IT'S AS PLAIN AS DAY. Sometimes, I think our guys just phone it in. It's not like that have to be watching anything else.

And would you believe me if I told you that this was our 21st edition of This Week in Sun Sports? You would? That's sweet. It's actually just the 18th, but, I like how trusting you are. There's so little of that in this day and age. Can I borrow a few bucks? I'll pay you back next week.

I swear.

A crazy cup-check, a gardening astronaut, and some TK mackin' after the jump...

We're going back in time, Clementine

Tuesday, June 19th

Remember this fun game? This was "Pine Tar Gate," if you forgot. While we were all focusing on the beady eyed stare of Nats' Manager Davey Johnson, reader Keith Craig, and especially his wife, were focused on something else, all together.

Reader Keith Craig, and especially his wife, were focused on something else.

That some-thing was this thing (Explicit Image, must be over 21 to proceed):

In the bottom of the eighth, after Joel Peralta's glove had been removed for having a illegal, sticky substance on it, this discussion took place on the mound. Mr. Craig's wife believes that this action "might be the worst nervous habit ever." I'd tend to agree, but I'm not exactly sure what he's doing.

The simple answer is that he's banging the ball into his cup. That's all well and good, but what if he's like that guy in the Da Vinci Code who inflicts pain upon himself as spiritual punishment. You ever think Peralta might not be wearing a cup? Maybe that's all him.

Maybe he's just making an illicit-but-dismissive gesture to the umpiring crew in protest over the situation. Maybe he is wearing a cup, but he's hitting it at different spots in order to make the Jurassic Park theme song. That must be it!

Either way, Peralta was removed from the game before he even got to make his first pitch. It's not the first time a guy has been refused the mound after leaving something sticky in his glove. He'll just have to bang on that cup for the next eight days as he thinks about what he's done.

Wednesday, June 20th

In the top of the sixth, we got a taste of the final frontier (h/t FUBob, Hipster Doofus. r/a TGN1 for the gif):

He dances more like a Cosmonaut that someone from NASA. I think they just got "the sprinkler" in Russia. Now listen to the Tetris tune while you watch this and tell me I'm wrong.

Saturday, June 23rd

In the sixth inning, Todd Kalas found a lonely Rays fan:

You can click the picture to watch some brief gif action if you like. Yes, this again is DRB's own Jason Collette. We've seen him behind Joe Maddon during some pregame interviews, and this question is always on my mind:

Why is he always on his phone? Is it an Angry Birds addiction? Does he have that Memento-disease where he forgets who he is every five minutes so he gets texts from himself?

Well, Todd Kalas doesn't have time to praise DRaysBay and Mr. Collette, he has places to be. Specifically, Lindsey's bachelorette party:

Look at TK mackin' on some Philly Phineatics. That's Lindsey with the blonde frizz, first from the right. You can tell TK feels right at home in Philly, home of his father: the late, great announcer Harry Kalas. You know he just walks up to a group of ladies and say's "Sup? I'm Harry's kid." Because all these girls know who Harry Kalas is. It's like how I got so much tail in LA by impersonating Vin Scully's grandson. "Who?" they'd say. (In LA, "who" means "yes." It's why they call it a "Who's who" town.)

But, TK didn't do it alone. He had a wingman:

Yup, that's the ZimBear making an appearance in Philly. Because if mentioning Harry Kalas doesn't get you in the door, a Don Zimmer name drop will for sure.

Also, the guy on the left wants to get in on the action. Apparently by offering bacon? Sorry, bro, 21 and over only.

Dewayne and BA watched Kalas at work:

DS: The Professor is lecturing right now.

BA: And you know what? He has a captive audience.

I know it's wrong, but when BA said 'captive audience,' my mind went directly to here:

Thanks for letting us invade you home this week.

Anyhoo, that's it for This Week in Sun Sports! Thanks again to everyone who sent stuff in this week. If you see something during the game that would fit "This Week in Sun Sports," please help us out and tag it (#TWSS) in the GDT or email a description or screencap (including inning and outs) to ThisWeekInSS@gmail.com. See you next week!